Christmas Morning Comes on August 1st

I asked Mr. Dahl to stop at the school on our way home from a lovely community party last night.  As I let myself in the door and found my way to the light switch I saw that our office administrator had been busy delivering requisitioned items to classrooms.  I grinned. I couldn’t help it.  It felt like Christmas morning. 

Markers and clipboards and a rainbow of construction paper all stacked and lumped in piles on every available surface.  I had spent untold hours doing a laborious classroom inventory and then more hours poring over supply company websites.  Education dollars are scarce and ludicrously precious so I take my role as conservator of taxpayers’ funds seriously.  But the flip side of the coin is, I will unashamedly ask for whatever resources I feel will benefit the Darlings.  They are only first graders once and deserve a first rate year.  The onus is on the saints who balance the books to tell me no.  They never have. 

My eyes skimmed over the piles and then light up when I saw the new globe amongst my spoils.  Images of ghosts of lessons past raced through my head and I laughed out loud. 

The old globe, the one that will now receive the fine burial it deserves in the dumpster out back, had benefitted from a Governor’s reprieve once before.  The library was throwing it out… and the library doesn’t throw ANYTHING out.  This thing was old in and terrible repair.  But I was desperate.  The only other globe to be found my first year of teaching was so outdated the lines and boundaries and names of countries had changed more than a few times.  At least this geriatric, rickety sphere, though well used, showed Myanmar where Burma used to be.

I could see that someone had tried to jury-rig the poles, both North and South, where the stand fit dead center in each.  But the fit was loose and when I tried to spin the world it wobbled precipitously.  Oh well, I decided with a sigh.  It would have to do. 

I set the raggedy specimen by my reading chair, determined to use it often.  And boy did I.  Holy cow, spun the last breath out of that sucker.  If the Darlings wanted to know where Madagascar was in the middle of reading block, by gum we where going to take the time to locate it.  We traveled the world on the smooth surface of that relic.  But sometimes there was a little drama thrown in too.

The first time it happened set the tone for future catastrophes.  It went something like this;  “Mrs. Dahl, where IS Greenland?”  Me:  “Well, let’s just find out!”  I gave that bad-boy a spin, like Vanna White on a hunt for all the D’s.  The orb wobbled for a moment, then (horrors), jumped its moorings, flew suspended in the air for what seemed an eternity, then crashed to the floor, rolled across blue industrial carpet and landed under the kidney table, South America side-up. 

The air was sucked out of the room for the briefest of moments and then Blondie asked in a tremulous voice, “Mrs. Dahl, are we going to die?”  I looked him square in the eye, the rest of his compadres frozen and watching, then said with panic in my voice and a twinkle in my eye, “we are DOOMED. Run!!!!!!!” 

Chaos ensued.

Six-year-olds screaming and running into each other and falling to the floor in sheer terror.  The world had spun clear off its axis.  Life on the Blue Marble was over.  Get ready to meet your Maker.  This is it.  We are TOAST.

Still laughing and falling and screaming, they retrieved our runaway Earth and handed it to me with breathless joy.  I managed to put it back into orbit and life resumed normalcy. 

It was sort of symbolic, really.  First graders believe their teacher to hold all of life’s secrets in his or her hands.  Other than their hours at home, school is their world.  They are utterly trusting and innocently adoring.  Not just me, of course; any first grade teacher anywhere in the world.  Think of your first grade teacher.  I’ll bet you smiled. 

It is the best job ever, this introductory grade.  And so humbling it terrifies me a little. 

And so, as I unpack and organize and ready the Magic Tree House for a fresh crop of Darlings, I am excited – yes, like a kid on Christmas Day.  I am grateful for the funds to purchase such wonderful things that will enhance our journey.

And on August 18^th, my precious students will walk through my door freshly scrubbed, nervous, backpacks brimming. 

And I….

I will have the untold, untiring pleasure of introducing them to the wonders of this amazing world… butterflies and lizards and poetry and phonemes and Antarctic penguins… 

It never gets old for me.  Ever.

Come with me, Children.  The world awaits…